Letters | Food assistance, mental health plan, Obamacare explanation

Food assistance

I was very pleased when the original House Farm Bill, which would have cut 2 million people off SNAP, was defeated. When so many children and families are still struggling to make ends meet, cutting food assistance is the last thing Congress should be doing.

Instead of realizing their mistake, House leaders are now doubling down on their failure and proposing to cut SNAP by a staggering $40 billion, twice as much as in their original Farm Bill.

SNAP is our first line of defense against hunger in America, especially with children. SNAP helps children grow up healthier and better fed. SNAP is credited with helping stabilize the economy during the Great Recession.

SNAP is also one of the most effective programs in government, with a 96 percent accuracy rate. If Congress wants people off SNAP, they should focus on creating good paying jobs - not forcing families into deeper poverty.

Hunger is still a serious problem in the United States and SNAP is doing its best to hold it at bay. In Kentucky, 24 percent of children and 9 percent of elderly live below the poverty line. In January 2013 SNAP reached 876,000 Kentucky residents, or 20 percent of the state population (1 in 5 people). I urge our representatives and senators protect and strengthen SNAP in any final Farm Bill or other legislation.

MYRDIN THOMPSON

Louisville 40215 -

Mental health plan

Congratulations to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Kentucky Division of Protection and Advocacy for the recent "Mental Health Accord!" The leaders of those agencies have managed something that all of us who preceded them failed to accomplish.

They not only recognized the plight of people with serious and persistent mental illness in personal care homes and the serious system failure it represented; but, they have agreed on a path forward and they have found a way to bring resources to what before had been empty promises.

The travesty goes back 50 years, when the deinstitutionalization movement began and state hospitals were significantly downsized. The hope was a better life in the community, the reality for too many was another congregate setting with staffs who were under-resourced and untrained to deal with mental illness. Thanks to Audrey Tayse Haynes, cabinet secretary, and Marsha Hockensmith, director of Protection and Advocacy, 600 of those individuals will now have a real option for a real life in the community.

We can't yet cure mental illness; but, agencies like Wellspring, in collaboration with Bridgehaven and Seven Counties, have proven that we know how to support people through housing, case management, treatment and peer support. Unlike 50 years ago, we know how to help people recover a life that is meaningful and make it possible for them to experience the little, day-to-day things that most of us take for granted. That is what brings dignity to a person and hope to life.

MARGARET PENNINGTON

Louisville 40205 -

Ms. Pennington is a Wellspring board member and former commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities. - Editor

Obamacare explained

On Aug. 18, Ed Schultz had as his guest on MSNBC's "Ed Show," Dr. Corey Hebert. Dr. Hebert worked with colleagues on simplifying the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare into an 11-page article.

Schultz said that he has read it, and believes that it answers a lot of questions.